Far-reaching research

Far-reaching summer research

June 26, 2015

In early June rising junior Jaya Borgatta '16 and chemistry professor Juan Navea traveled
to Valencia, Spain, to attend the Wessex Institute for Air Pollution’s annual conference,
where she presented their published paper on the interactions and potential impacts
of iron carried by and leached from mineral-based droplets floating in the atmosphere.
The chemistry major is now co-writing her third paper on fly ash emitted from coal-fueled
power plants in India, Europe, and the US. "Every power plant has a specific climate
and ecological impact," explains Navea, "based on the chemical composition of the
particles it emits and how they dissolve and release iron into atmospheric water (clouds,
fog, rain). Iron is a critical nutrient for ocean phytoplankton, which consume greenhouse
gas, CO2, from the atmosphere."

Borgatta, who has been working with the Navea Research Group since the fall semester of her sophomore year, is joined this summer by Schupf Scholars
Deborah Kim '18, Katherine Shi '18, and Talia Stortini '18—all rising freshmen doing
summer research for the first time and planning to continue this fall. Navea says,
"Jaya has become a scientist in every sense of the word, a twice-published scientist
no less. And Deborah, Katie, and Talia, as first-year researchers, have already made
a great impact in my lab in just four weeks."

"What’s really cool about the research is how one-of-a-kind it is and how our discoveries
truly matter," says Kim, who is now rethinking her plan to go to veterinary school.
"We don't have a lot of information on fly ash dissolution—there are only a few research
groups in the world studying it—so it's exciting every time we get new results."

Another project with global implications is government professor Feryaz Ocakli’s "Diverse
Paths to Political Power: An Examination of the Career Trajectories of Turkish Political
Elites." Ocakli’s main area of research is Islamist parties. He explores how Islamist
parties broaden their appeal to non-Islamist voters and succeed in elections. He has
also been eager to analyze the educational, occupational, and demographic backgrounds
of Turkey’s members of parliament (For more on his research and teaching, go here.) .

Says Ocakli, "I wanted to study the political elites because we don’t actually know
who they are and how they got elected to the nation’s parliament, at least not in
quantitative terms. I wanted to create a data set to illuminate the forces at work.
But I needed a responsible Skidmore student who spoke Turkish to do this work."

No problem. Beginning last spring semester, he hired economics majors Ovgu Bozgeyik
'16 and Oyku Bozgeyik '16, twin sisters from Turkey, as his research assistants. Things
went so well that they asked if they could continue their data collection efforts
and make it part of the summer research program.

Says Oyku, "Though I study economics, this project has helped me realize the effect
of politics on a country's state of affairs. When this country is Turkey, everything
gets really interesting because we know a lot and a little at the same time as students
who come from Turkey. The experience with data collection and analysis will also benefit
us after Skidmore when we apply to Ph.D. programs in economics."

This April, Skidmore and its project partner, Gravity Renewables, celebrated the opening of a refurbished micro-hydro plant that we hope will provide
up to four megawatts hours of electricity annually to the grid, which Skidmore has
agreed to purchase for two decades. The College will get about 18 percent of its electricity
from the dam.

Caroline Hobbs '16, an economics and environmental studies double major, spoke at
the April ribbon-cutting . She says what most excites her about this "ground-breaking" project is that there
are "minimal negative ecological effects" and that the "untapped potential in New
York state for more micro-hydro projects is huge."

Hobbs is working this summer with environmental studies professor Karen Kellogg to create an interactive website that she hopes will increase visibility around
Skidmore’s renewable energy initiatives and spur on additional micro-hydro projects
and partnerships. This fall, Hobbs and Kellogg also plan to co-author a paper and
do a presentation on the history of the dam.

Says Hobbs, "I hope the project will help more students recognize that Skidmore is
truly on the cutting-edge in terms of renewable energy policy and action and take
greater pride in what our school is all about."

Lopez, who enjoys analyzing sports data and has written for Sports Illustrated and
Hockey News, is well aware of studies indicating that athletes born in the first part
of the calendar year often outperform the rest of their age group because they get
a head start. It surprised him, though, that similar statistical analyses had not
been done on college students. Why not study Skidmore data?

He says, "We're looking at measures like graduation status, GPA, and SAT scores for
students, specifically wondering if the relatively older students have shown better
or worse performance, and also hoping to identify other determinants of student success."
Markiewicz isn’t sure what she wants to do after college but knows she enjoys applied
math, so she jumped at the opportunity to test-drive these statistics. Furman plans
to be an actuary, so an experience with statistics and probability is a great fit
for her future.

Bacteria are a great opportunists and adapters, which can present problems for fighting
disease, says chemistry professor Kelly Sheppard. Prevention solutions require a keen understanding of how bacteria exploit different
environments.

Describing his work with Sheppard on asparaginyl-tRNA formation in bacilli, Miles
Calzini '16 explains, "In the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, I'm getting rid of a gene
that's responsible for the correct attaching of the amino acid asparagine to its transfer
RNA. The organism has another way to do this attaching. We're going to see how this
removal, called a knockout, affects growth of the bacterium, since it will have to
rely on its alternate pathway."

Miles is teaming up with Julia Erskine '17, a rising sophomore who presented a poster
on aspartyl-tRNA synthesis in Bacillus anthracis, a pathogenic relative of B. subtilis,
at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Boston in March.
With Sheppard and previous Skidmore undergraduate co-authors, they plan to submit
an article to the journal Nucleic Acids Research later this summer on the dual routes
for asparaginyl-tRNA formation these bacteria. They are joined this summer by Ruth
Allard '16, who hopes to go to medical school, and David Sweezey '17, who is aiming
for graduate school.

After a year and a half doing research with Sheppard, Erskine, who plans to become
a physician’s assistant, is pleased with her progress. "Not only am I confident and
more competent in lab, but I have learned how to troubleshoot when things don't work
out (which is often). I am no longer reliant on lab manuals or cookie-cutter procedures.
I am able to think for myself, and think like a scientist."

46. Mulligan, Scott, Management and Business and International Affairs, Diggs, Makeda
'17, Surveillance studies in the 21st century: A study of GIS and surveillance technologies
for classroom use and museum exhibition, 5-week-1, Marlene Oberkotter Fowler